What are your favorite (or not so favorite) PS manipulations?

[cjogo]

REUBIN:::

Actually makes it a little easier --I end-up shooting half as much film. About 6 to 7 rolls per wedding. Pretty much straight controlled portraiture. Kind of ~~ "boring but perfect."

[anner]

I like the subtle things as well- shadow/highlight, contrast, saturation, desaturation, slight

blur or clone for skin problems. I like natural looking images. However I did have

someone recently request the spot colored look for an engagement photo which they

wanted to turn into a very large print. I have to admit that I like the use of spot color

when it helps to force perspective within a busy image, but when the subject is blatent-

like the flowers, it seems to be a bit trivial. This is the example that the couple

requested..<div></div>

[anner]

Doh! I swear I saved it at 350 pixels!<div></div>

[lb-]

well my very favorite thing that PS does is let me batch most all of what I do but I guess

second to that is the ability to give people giant eyes!

 

seriously though, I would LOVE some advice on B+W conversion from digital color files. I

can't seem to make them even close to good looking (to my eye).

 

great thread!<div></div>

[gmahler5th]

Lucas, try Fred Miranda's BW plugin for Photoshop. It gives you unsurpassed flexibility and cretative control.. I use it, works great.

<br><br>

<a href="http://www.fredmiranda.com/DBWpro/">http://www.fredmiranda.com/DBWpro/</a><div></div>

[mike dixon]

Most useful tool is the clone tool for zapping blemishes and smoothing lines and wrinkles. Being able to selectively dodge shadows, midtones, and highlights is also very handy. Curves adjustments rock.

 

I'll add another vote to colored flowers with a desaturated background as being the most-overworked cliche. Skin smoothed so it looks like plastic is creepy looking. I can do without diffusion that's so heavy handed it looks like vaseline was smeared on the lens.

[jeff medkeff anchorage, a]

<p><i>try Fred Miranda's BW plugin for Photoshop ... <a href="http://www.fredmiranda.com/DBWpro/">http://www.fredmiranda.com/DBWpro/</a></i>

 

<p>The Fred Miranda site is a huge and masterful collection of navigational irritations, and this URL is no exception. There's not a single link on the page - pertinently, there is no information about how to go about getting a copy of the plugin there....

 

<p>Looks like if you go <a href="http://www.fredmiranda.com/software/">here</a> you can buy it for $30, but no trial available, if I understand correctly. Not sure I understand correctly, though, since there isn't a link to the page you provided from the page I provided, and that makes me wonder if the page you provided is about the same plugin, whether there could be version differences, or what.

[lb-]

hey steve,

 

I've been meaning to check it out and in fact I'm using his sharpening and resize plugins

for the 20D with much success.

 

still, even the better conversions that I've seen still don't quite do it for me. I guess there's

a reason my fridge is full of B+W film and I refuse to sell my film cameras!

 

back to the thread, I would certainly add the clone stamp and healing brush to my most

used tools (I write as I sit here looking at about 10 years worth of slides and negs as yet

unscanned!).

 

cheers

 

lucas

[jewan_runhaar]

Hi Lucas,<br><br>

 

You could also try <a href="http://www.russellbrown.com/tips_tech.html" target="blank">Russel Brown's Seeing in Black & White</a> I made an action in PS of this and it works great. It works really is and gives you full control.

[fotografz]

My favorite PS manipulation comes from the "Invisibility Tool".

 

IMO, success is when no one is aware that some trick was applied. Digital "peeled

Polaroid"; faking some real lens effect; color isolation; Images "cooked beyond

perfection"; etc., etc., are usually just "plastic" slight of hands attempting to divert

attention away from a mediocre photo. Not always, but usually.

 

IMO, the single best advancement PS provides over traditional darkroom work is the ease

and precision of selecting a specific area. Masking and mapping a traditional neg based

print is a hugely time consuming and difficult task to master.... and even harder to

consistently repeat. With a little practice and patience, anyone can map and mask an

image in PS that would have blown Ansel Adams' mind ... with even the most subtile areas

of manipulation infinitely repeatable.